US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Anhelina Kalinina vs Himeno Sakatsume — 6-3 6-3
 Himeno Sakatsume✓ | 6 | 6 |
 Anhelina Kalinina | 3 | 3 |
Final · Monday, August 31, 2026 · Round of 128
Result
Sakatsume, ranked 144th and through three rounds of qualifying, was broken in the opening game and broke straight back, then broke again in the fourth and never gave the lead up. She opened the second set with another break and finished the match with a fourth in the ninth game: eight holds from nine, four breaks from seven chances, three aces to none, and 64 of the 115 points in 1 hour 24 minutes on Court 15. Kalinina, the world No. 51, won one return game all afternoon. It is the 25-year-old Japanese qualifier's first Grand Slam main-draw win.
Anhelina KalininaRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
The Round of 128 is the widest the net ever gets: 64 matches a draw, spread across three days, every seed in action and every qualifier playing the biggest match of the year. This half of the bracket filled in late — qualifying ran a day long after rain pushed the last round to Friday, so these names were still blank slots on draw night. First-round losers leave with $140,000. The winner draws Bejlek or Bucsa in the Round of 64.
What we know now
What I said beforehand
The preview, frozen before the first serve. Clearly dated, never rewritten — that's the deal that makes the pick worth anything.
Kalinina is 49th and 20–16 this season, with 161 career hard-court matches; Sakatsume is a 144th-ranked qualifier, 11–8, making her US Open main-draw debut. Kalinina's record on the surface is a losing one (74–87), which is the only crack, but 95 ranking places and a 159-point hard-court Elo edge are a lot to overturn with three qualifying wins. Kalinina in two.
The case for Anhelina Kalinina
73% to winNinety-five ranking places, a 20–16 season, and a second round here in 2024. Kalinina's grinding baseline game is exactly the wall a qualifier has to hit through, and Sakatsume has never played a Grand Slam main-draw match.
The case for Himeno Sakatsume
27% to winSakatsume is 11–8 this season with a winning career hard-court record (22–18) where Kalinina's is 74–87. Add three matches of court time this week and the gap is narrower than the rankings suggest.
Both cases written 2026-08-29, before the first ball — frozen into the record exactly as written, whatever the result. The percentages are mine — opinions with a percent sign on. They add to 100 because tennis has no draw to hide the rounding in.
My locked pick: Anhelina Kalinina to advance ✗ WRONG
“Ninety-five ranking places and a 159-point hard-court Elo edge over a first-time main-draw qualifier.”
Locked 2026-08-29 01:40 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Anhelina KalininaHimeno SakatsumePlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-08-28.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-28.
Storylines
- Sakatsume, 25, is playing her first US Open main draw after qualifying.
- Kalinina's career hard-court record is 74–87 — a losing one, despite a top-50 ranking.
- Sakatsume's 22–18 career hard-court record is the better of the two on percentage.
Head to head
They have never met.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-28.
Court & schedule: Court 15, Monday 31 August. The US Open posts each day's order of play the evening before; this one is on the board. (Official US Open order of play, as of 2026-08-30)
Weather: Sunday — the men's final, and the last match of the fortnight — was forecast at 78°F with showers and thunderstorms 95% likely, the wettest day of the two weeks and the one day that could not be pushed back. The rain came in the morning and stopped before the final, which Ashe played with its roof open. It cleared from there: 15% overnight, 15% Monday, then dry and sunny. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-13)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.